Her ruddy face, so bright that it seemed almost as if wholly covered with a birthmark, gleamed with absolute good nature as she looked at him. She threw off the black veil which half concealed her strange coiffure of green toadstool-coloured hair. She placed her choicest morsels before the young captain of the Douglas guard.
"'Tis hard," she said, touching him confidentially on the shoulder, "hard to dwell here in this country wherein so many deeds of blood are wrought, alone with a poor imbecile like my husband. None cares to help me with aught, all being too busy with their own affairs. It falls on me to till the fields, which, scanty as they are, are more than my feeble strength can compass unaided. Alone I must prune and water the vines, bring in the firewood, and go out and in by night and day to earn a scanty living for this afflicted one and myself. You will hear, perchance, mischief laid to my charge in this village of evil speakers and lazy folk. They hate me because I am no gadabout to spend time abusing my neighbours at the village well. But the children love me, and that is no ill sign. Their young hearts are open to love a poor lone old woman. What cares La Meffraye for the sneers of the ignorant and prejudiced so long as the children run to her gladly and search her pockets for the good things she never forgets to bring them from her kitchen?"
So the old woman, talking all the time, bustled here and there, setting sweet cakes baked with honey, confitures and bairns' goodies, figs, almonds, and cheese before her guests. But through all her blandishments Sholto watched her and had his eyes warily upon what should befall her husband, who could be seen lying apparently either asleep or unconscious upon the bed in an inner room.
"You do not speak like the folk of the south," she said to the Lord James. "Neither are you Northmen nor of the Midi. From what country may you come?" The question dropped casually as to fill up the time.
"We are poor Scots who have lived under the protection of your good King Charles, the seventh of that name, and having been restored to our possessions after the turning out of the English, we are making a pilgrimage in order to visit our friends and also to lay our thanks upon the altar of the blessed Saint Andrew in his own town in Scotland."
The old woman listened, approvingly nodding her head as the Lord James reeled off this new and original narrative. But at the mention of the land of the Scots La Meffraye pricked her ears.
"Scots," she said meditatively; "that will surely interest my lord, who hath but recently returned from that country, whither they say he hath been upon a very confidential embassy from the King."
It was the Lord James who asked the next question.
"Have you heard whether any of our nation returned with him from our country? We would gladly meet with any such, that we might hear again the tongue of our nativity, which is ever sweet in a strange land—and also, if it might be, take back tidings of them to their folk in Scotland."
"Nay," answered La Meffraye, standing before them with her eyes shrewdly fixed upon the face of the speaker, "I have heard of none such. Yet it may well be, for the marshal is very fond of the society of the young, even as I am myself. He has many boy singers in his choir, maidens also for his religious processions. Indeed, never do I visit Machecoul without finding a pretty boy or a stripling girl passing so innocently in and out of his study, that it is a pleasure to behold."